Homo/femo-nationalism and norm critical pedagogy

Presenters
Michael Nebeling Petersen (University of Copenhagen) and Lena Martinsson (Göteborg University)

Moderator
Marta Padovan-Özdemir (Roskilde University)

Title
Homo/femo-nationalism and norm critical pedagogy

Since the end of WWII, The Nordic welfare states have narrated and branded themselves as pioneers and guardians of social-liberal ideals of gender equality, human rights and freedom of speech and congregation. However, in the recent wake of feminist and postcolonial critiques, we see research and activism pointing out how these liberal norms have been intimately tangled up with national sentiments. Thus, turning into what is known as homo/femo-nationalism. A concept and societal figure that illuminate how gender equality and rights of LGBT+ people are colonized by national ideologies of superiority. At this seminar, Dr. Michael Nebeling Petersen (University of Copenhagen) and Prof. Lena Martinsson (Göteborg University) will share critical perspectives and approaches to study and disentangle homo/femo-nationalism in its various appearances in the Nordic welfare states. Dr. Marta Padovan-Özdemir (Roskilde University) will moderate a discussion on how homo/femo-nationalism may be haunting norm critical pedagogies, hence, complicating a context-sensitive theorization of norm critique.

Lena Martinsson is professor in Gender studies, university of Gothenburg. She is working on two research projects. One of the projects is about political subjectivity among teachers, students, and principals. The other focus on anti-gender movements in the Nordic region.  

Michael Nebeling Petersen is associate professor in Gender Studies at the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Difference at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has especially studied homosexual culture and citizenship, new technologies of reproduction and kinship as well as digital media and mediated cultures of intimacy – in particular, in the intersections between sexuality, gender, whiteness, and national belonging. Currently, he is PI for the collaborative interdisciplinary project The Cultural History of AIDS in Denmark, that examines how AIDS emerged, became signified and became embedded in Danish culture 1981-2000.

Marta Padovan-Özdemir is associate professor in diversity, discrimination and social sustainability at the Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Denmark. For the past six years, she has studied the implementation of norm critical perspectives in various educational settings. Currently, she is the Co-PI of a research project advancing the theoretical conceptualization of change in norm critical pedagogy. Padovan-Özdemir is also the co-founder and convener of the Shifting Grounds Research Network.